


The Man Who Sold The World

by DualExistence



Series: DarkSide [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: 80s Music, Bounty Hunters, Gen, Memories, Parallels, first encounter, killing shitty people together I guess, long car rides, very vague mchanzo actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 04:59:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16804090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DualExistence/pseuds/DualExistence
Summary: Three years before Overwatch’s Recall, Jesse McCree is working as a bounty hunter in the United States. Upon trying to kill a corrupt businessman who tried to flee the law, he runs into an assassin with an all too familiar face but Jesse is unable to recall where he has seen him before.





	The Man Who Sold The World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kinsale_42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinsale_42/gifts).



Night had fallen over the dusty outskirts of Phoenix. The lights of the city illuminated its surroundings for miles which made the petrol station so far away from the last part of human civilisation look a little less damned to solitude.

  
The neon lights shining upon the demolished car showed every inch of its surface covered in dirt and scratches but its owner couldn’t care less about its looks when the functionality was still given.

There weren’t many cars nowadays who still relied on petrol to be run, hardly any of the energy providers catered to people who still stuck to this old and unethical method of transportation, so he was thankful for having found one just in time when he needed it.

He refilled a canister as well, just in case, then went inside the shop to pay. As always in cash, which had been given weird looks but never questions asked about. He couldn’t risk being tracked.  
For the job, he did – but also for the fact that he was still having a high bounty on his name as well.

  
He put the canister into the cargo bay, then lit himself another cigar. There was still plenty of time until he needed to leave anyway.

He had been given a tip to where his target was located. Just another poor idiot criminal who thought he could escape law’s hands. But this never worked, Jesse knew it all too well from his own past.

And what he wanted was to make this world a better place, even if the law wanted him dead as well.

  
His employers weren’t officials, but Jesse sure as hell made his research on who he worked with. By all means, his job was doing the dirty work for others, but he would not dare to do it for the wrong kind of people. Talon got their fingers everywhere and it made this really difficult but he was more than happy to put a bullet into the head of those who caused the world unnecessary pain.

His cigar almost finished, he sat down in his car, door still open. Jesse looked over to the things scattered across the passenger’s seat next to him: on top of a map of the United States and other random papers and letters, there was the small light brown notebook he was carrying around like a treasure. Next, to his Peacekeeper, it was his most valuable possession. Nothing more than a diary that he kept since he had joined Blackwatch almost two decades ago, a recording of every thought and memory that had crossed his mind. He had several of these, all of them filled to the bottom corner of the last page in black ink.

  
Jesse opened the diary and flicked through the pages one last time before he started the motor and the machine howled loudly in protest. It was time to get his hands on a new car – maybe for one that wasn’t stolen from an abandoned junkyard in the middle of the American southwest.

  
“Don’t give up on me now,” he mumbled as he closed the driver’s door. He engaged the gear and stepped on the gas, driving away into the night.

*

His target – a corrupted businessman named Newman who had been caught smuggling weapons through the black market as well as being involved in the murder of several of his competitors – had found shelter in the middle of nowhere in the Arizonian desert, an abandoned factory that apparently had been revived as a hideout to continue his questionable means of profit, indicated by the amount of light and cleanliness of the place that hadn’t been in use since the times before the Omnic Crisis swept over the world.

  
Jesse had waited from an outlook far enough from the location to observe the distrustful peace, then left at what he thought of the right moment to infiltrate the facility.  
He sneaked along the fence, watching the open area with careful eyes. The fact that there was no one to be seen made him suspicious, as he had been warned to protect himself from the place being guarded with plenty of skilled men in arms.

  
It was too empty for his liking. He rolled himself into a dry bush near the fence, taking out a calliper from the pocket of his pants to cut it; the fence being impossible to be climbed due to barbed wire all along its top – only to realise that in the darkness someone apparently had already done this at the same spot.  
It only made Jesse’s suspicion grew worse, but he kept the curses on his tongue. Without making too much noise he squeezed himself through the opening and sneaked in a zig-zag between containers, cranes and other objects he could hide behind to get closer to the factory building.

It was too dark for anything to be seen by what was not touched by the lights coming from the main building, which was ideal to get as close to as possible without being detected.  
According to his informant, there should have been at least a couple guards around though but the place was dead, wiped of any human soul besides his own.  
  
Looking over his shoulder multiple times to make sure he was alone he eventually reached to the back door that would lead him inside. He thanked all the Gods up there in the sky for the door to not make any noise as he slipped through, hand hovering over the holster in which he kept his gun.  
  
The back door led him through a storage: hundreds of shelves packed with various boxes, folders and other items on them that gave Jesse the perfect hiding spot to eavesdrop on any possible conversation happening nearby.  
And there were voices – hushed voices of the man he hunted and his fellow people but not loud enough to make sense to his ears – apparently on the other side of the place.  
  
Jesse sneaked along the shelves; he could see a light on the other end of the hall where the voices came from. There weren’t too many, maybe of three or four men.  
  
He came closer slowly, his Peacekeeper now ready in his right hand, just a few rows away from the men, their conversation now audible enough for him to understand.  
  
Jesse listened carefully, waiting for the right moment. His eyes wandered along the shelves one more time when his gaze fell upon the shadow of something sticking out of one of the boxes the row next to him. It didn’t look like it belonged there, as everything else was neatly stored away. He approached the box to examine the object.  
  
It was an arrow.  
  
Jesse turned around, he couldn’t make out anything in the twilight of the storage room. His eyes were getting old and he hated it.  
He brought his attention back to the arrow sticking out of the box. Its tip was unusual, it seemed like a device was attached to it.  
  
No way he was alone in here now, the fact that there were no guards around while he tried to get in here, the hole in the fence – that arrow.  
  
He was about to detach it from the box to examine it further as someone pulled him away from the shelf in a tight grip, a muscular arm wrapped around his neck and a gloved hand covering his mouth, trying to suffocate him.  
Jesse’s heart beat fast against his chest, he kicked the attacker in the sides several times with his elbow but the man seemed to not react to it.  
He knew he couldn’t risk firing his gun, it would just alarm the entire factory and they were both in more trouble than Jesse was already now. He had to keep his calm.  
  
Jesse gasped for air; he bit into the man’s gloved fingers which let him pull them away, still keeping his arm tightly around his neck though.  
He threw his entire body weight against the man and they both stumbled back, which made the stranger let go of him to not fall.  
  
In a split second Jesse turned around abruptly, still out of breath but not losing his focus, captured the man’s wrist with his free hand and bent his arm in an uncomfortable position. He forced him against the shelf, his Peacekeeper buried into the man’s stomach a second later as the other tried to fight back with his free hand.  
  
“Don’t try anything stupid,” Jesse whispered, now face to face with him.  
  
In the dim light, he could make out the features of his attacker: an East Asian man who was almost a head shorter than him, his black hair tied into a bun. With dark brown eyes, he stared back into his, unimpressed over the fact that Jesse had overpowered him so quickly.  
  
“I know you won’t shoot me,” the stranger replied under his breath and put his hand over the one holding the gun.  
  
“What makes you so sure?”  
  
The man nodded towards Jesse’s target person in the back.  
“If I were to do anything stupid, I would bring a gun to this job.”  
  
Jesse sighed lowly, the smug expression on the stranger’s face only added onto the insult but he let it slide; instead he withdrew the weapon, giving him one more judging look before letting go entirely.  
  
So he hadn’t been the only one after Newman. It was kind of a relief to know that the man who just attacked him was on his side – at least for now.  
  
The hushed conversation between the men in the back was still ongoing despite his little fight with the assassin that had appeared out of nowhere.  
  
Jesse watched the stranger slip to the row across, kneeling down in the darkness while preparing what apparently turned out to be a crossbow. To his surprise, he made a gesture for Jesse to follow.  
  
“I figured this would be a little difficult alone. The guards weren’t much of a problem, but our friends here are all armed with guns and I cannot silently assassinate them one by one without getting shot at,” the stranger explained with a low voice. “But I assume you could distract them with open fire.”  
  
“Seems like today ‘s your lucky day,” Jesse whispered back. “Tell me when you want me to go in.”  
  
The stranger already had his bow spanned, aiming at the head of one of the men sitting with their mutual target.  
  
“Now.”  
  
The second he shot the arrow through the little space between the shelves, Jesse walked straightforwardly into the open space where the men were sitting together around a table. The arrow hit the guy on the right in the neck, blood splashing all over his body and he slumped down in his chair.  
  
The other three jumped away from the desk, guns pointed at Jesse who threw a stun grenade in their direction; one of them trying to shoot him that very second hit the grenade and blinded himself which gave Jesse the opportunity to shoot the other two, leaving Newman all by himself.  
  
The man was shaking visibly – he tried to shoot Jesse but missed all his shots. The gun made clicking noises as he tried to fire without any bullets left.  
  
“Oh c’mon, really?” Jesse commented as he took the gun out of the Newman’s hand with ease, dropping it with a loud clunk onto the desk that was still between them. “You’re nothin’ without your bulldogs protecting you, ain’t it?”  
  
“How could you find me?!” Newman stammered at Jesse, a face flushed red in anger but his eyes full of anxiety.  
  
“I got my contacts,” Jesse replied with a laugh. “But it doesn’t matter anyway. Fact is, you knew what was coming. I am here to end it, once and for all.”  
  
Newman stared at him, trying to find words to say to the bounty hunter in front of him but all he could do was let himself fall back in the chair in defeat.  
  
Jesse raised his peacekeeper and in the next moment the man was dead, a bullet wound between his brows.  
  
He hadn’t noticed that the assassin had left his hiding spot behind the shelves until he stood next to Jesse.  
  
He approached the dead men around the desk and moved their heads to look at their faces, mumbling something in a language Jesse did not understand, then stopped at Newman’s face.  
  
The assassin took out a little plastic jar, a pocket knife and a camera from the bag he carried with, took a photo of the dead man before he cut off a strand of hair and put it into the plastic jar. _Proof of a successful job_ , Jesse figured.  
  
The man pocketed all the things, then turned towards him once again. “Thank you,” he said. He sounded awkward as if such words weren’t his best vocabulary.

“You’re welcome,” Jesse replied with a slight smile on his lips.  
They left the building together.

*

“It was you who got rid of the guards then,” he tried to start a conversation as they walked over the factory site. The stranger ignored him but seemed to not mind his presence either.  
  
Jesse had no idea how to read him. It gave him an awfully familiar feeling but he couldn’t pinpoint where it came from. As if he had met the man somewhere before.  
  
They left the place through the hole in the fence and walked back in direction of the street.  
Jesse hadn’t even seen where whatever vehicle the stranger had come with when he arrived. He just followed him, wanted to at least get to know his name before they parted ways.  
  
Their encounter had made this job easier, both their skill sets being completely different but complementing each other perfectly.  
Together, they would be deadlier and also safer.  
At least in Jesse’s imagination...  
  
The stranger walked towards the outlook that Jesse had climbed only an hour before and looked around in confusion.  
He cussed, again in the language the other did not understand.  
  
“Is something wrong?” Jesse asked.  
  
“クソ… one of the guys working for Newman saw me and ran away and he stole my bike apparently,” the stranger answered with a hearable annoyed voice.  
  
Jesse approached him, for a second playing with the thought of putting a hand on his shoulder but then decided against it. The familiar feeling the man gave him was irritating. As if he had comforted him in another time.  
  
“I could take you back to Phoenix, my car ‘s over there.”  
  
The stranger gave him a glare – as if Jesse’s offer was a personal attack – but having no other option, he agreed with a sigh.  
“Alright.”  
  
Jesse lit himself a cigar as they walked towards his car that he parked before between dry bushes and rocks concealing it from the street.  
  
“It’s not the greatest car in the world, I have to say but I hope it’s enough.”  
  
The stranger had crossed his arms in front of his chest but didn’t say anything in return.  
  
Jesse opened the passenger’s door and quickly threw the items lying there onto the backseat, then silently offered him with a gesture to get inside.  
“Do you mind if I smoke inside the car? Open the window of course.”  
  
“I don’t care.”  
  
He couldn’t figure out if the man really didn’t care or if he was just avoiding conversation. Jesse sat down in the driver’s seat and turned on the machine. At least this time the car didn’t refuse to start. 

*

They drove for a while in silence, his passenger not paying Jesse any attention, his gaze focused on the night sky.  
  
Jesse tried to start a conversation in the first hour but as he got no reply, he let him be and turned on the radio instead.  
The second hour passed, tiredness and hunger overcoming him slowly, the silence of his comrade wasn’t helping at all.  
  
“Mind if we take a break at the next diner? I’m starving…” he asked and was again ignored. Jesse sighed. “Whatever I guess, I’m getting something to eat.”  
  
“Please continue driving.”  
  
Jesse did not expect him to talk, after acting like Jesse didn’t exist next to him, and he almost stepped on the brakes in a mix of tiredness and surprise.  
  
“I need to get back to Phoenix as fast as possible,” the stranger explained – while explaining nothing at all.  
  
“Sure then… but you owe me breakfast then,” he replied. “Can I at least ask for your name?”  
  
The man had turned towards him this time, but he kept silent. A new song started to play on the radio.

_We passed upon the stair_   
_We spoke of was and when_   
_Although I wasn't there_   
_He said I was his friend_   
_Which came as a surprise_   
_I spoke into his eyes_   
_I thought you died alone_   
_A long long time ago_

“Hanzo,” he replied.

_Oh no, not me_   
_We never lost control_   
_You're face to face_   
_With the man who sold the world_

“My name is Jesse McCree. It is… a pleasure to meet you, Hanzo.”  
  
He had heard the name somewhere before. Seen this man’s face somewhere, but he couldn’t recall exactly where… a faint memory that escaped his hands as he tried to catch it.  
  
_I laughed and shook his hand_  
 _And made my way back home_  
 _I searched for form and land_  
 _For years and years I roamed_  
 _I gazed a gazeless stare_  
 _We walked a million hills_  
 _I must have died alone_  
 _A long, long time ago_

“There are many men who want me dead,” Hanzo said. “I thought you’d be the same.”  
  
_Who knows?_  
 _Not me_  
 _I never lost control_  
 _You're face to face_  
 _With the man who sold the world_

“Might be because I am a hunted man as well,” Jesse replied with a chuckle. “Maybe we should work together… it’d be easier to get things done and harder for them to kill us.”  
  
Hanzo took another while to answer.  
  
_Who knows?_  
 _Not me_  
 _I never lost control_  
 _You're face to face_  
 _With the man who sold the world_

“Maybe… maybe you are right, McCree.”

**Author's Note:**

> When I think of Hanzo and Jesse, 80s music starts to play in my head. Regarding the song playing in the radio, while Jesse is driving back to Phoenix, I had Midge Ure's cover of this David Bowie song in my head, which became quite famous through Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain; https://youtu.be/cLoytewvn0g
> 
> Hideo Kojima's storytelling is one of my major inspirations and you might find one or another reference to his incredible work in future parts of DarkSide. 
> 
> Compared to Adrenaline, this chapter is a little less emotional and I had a lot of trouble writing it at first. Granted, I wrote it while being only half awake, I had to edit it multiple times to be satisfied. While the car scene had been in my head much much longer than the plot of Adrenaline, it wasn't as easy on me. I hope to have however achieved the atmosphere I wanted to give.  
> Jesse's and Hanzo's journey together is going to be quite turbulent and I cannot wait to continue it, though the next part of this series will go even further back into the past. :) 
> 
> Again, I am really happy to receive feedback on this. The current version (01/12/2018) is not beta-read yet, as my friend is currently occupied with college. It might update in a week or two with fixed grammar.


End file.
